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USB Trojan Hides In Portable Applications, Targets Air-Gapped Systems
Reader itwbennett writes: A Trojan program, dubbed USB Thief by researchers at security firm ESET, infects USB drives that contain portable installations of popular applications such as Firefox, NotePad++, or TrueCrypt, and it also seems to be designed to steal information from so-called air-gapped computers. "In the case we analyzed, it was configured to steal all data files such as images or documents, the whole windows registry tree (HKCU), file lists from all of the drives, and information gathered using an imported open-source application called 'WinAudit'," the ESET researchers said. The stolen data was saved back to the USB drive and was encrypted using elliptic curve cryptography. Once the USB drive was removed, there was no evidence left on the computer, the ESET researchers added.
How does the trojan get installed on the USB stick in the first place? Either you are using USB drives provided by a stranger (who does that?) or someone has stolen your drive, installed their software, and replaced it without your knowledge. Plausible, but not a great way to propagate this to more than a few specific people.
And yes this is how secure systems operate. You have a box that you load an ISO image onto that goes and checks that image with a battery of AV and other security products and then produces a CD or DVD that you then go and bring with you into your secure server room to load onto the servers. The disk then lives in that room until it gets fed to a shredder. Any electronic gadgets that enter the room remain in the room until they also get fed to a shredder.
Yes I have been in such facilities and even got to see one of my co-workers lose his new iPhone to the shredder because he didn't heed the warnings.
Time to offend someone